


In Memorandum

by bbcsherlockian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Denial, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memories, Memory Alteration, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:04:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3124595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcsherlockian/pseuds/bbcsherlockian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You try to cover it up and fill it in with closed curtains and locked doors and used teabags but the light, unrelenting, keeps pouring through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoppyAlexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/gifts).



“It is now widely recognised that human memory is not an exact reproduction of past experiences but is instead an imperfect process that is prone to various kinds of errors and distortions.” - _Daniel L. Schacter & Peggy L. St. Jacques, Department of Psychology, Harvard University_

In other words, the brain is a fickle mistress. We do not retain the memories of exact experiences, but rather the memories of conscious (or subconscious) thoughts during said experiences; alternately, the memories can become tainted and affected due to a later event.

This applies to everyone.

This applies to you, although you do not accept it.

***

“What are you doing?” He had asked, taking residence of the armchair to your left.

“Notebook.” You had let the word loose so hurriedly that it bent sharply in the middle as it sped up your larynx and out of your mouth. Against the inside of your eyelids you saw the light stutter and distort itself.

It was a notebook, but the writing on the pages was three dimensional and you had added colour and movement and sound, all annotated so closely and so intricately that there were places where the ink pooled neatly off the corners and blended into the black.

“Ah.”

“So I don’t forget you.”

“Me?”

“You. So I forget nothing about you.”

“What, so- So you’ve written down my height and my shoe size and-”

“-and the different ways you prefer your toast, and the exact intonation of your voice when you’re confused but you’re trying to mask it, and likelihood of you choosing particular channels when you turn on the television in percentages in descending order, and-- You get the gist, I’m sure.”

***

You’re reading it now. And although you wrote it down - although you recorded this - everything is slightly blurred in places where it wasn’t in The Before and there are- Yes, there are definite markings and patterns and added colour where you knew it never used to be. When bereft of creative stimulus, you suppose, the mind entertains itself.

This is not strictly true.

So you’re reading it now and it’s pulling on something indefinable, but that’s okay. That’s really quite okay. To feel is better not to feel in most situations, which is a thing you never learned for yourself but were taught and accepted and you grew. With an air of sudden nostalgia, you wish you were still growing.

The book was wrapped in leather and more easily compared to a kineograph than a novel, but the first few pages were bound tightly together by solid cursive.

“These,” You had written, “Are the facts:

“His eyes are ( _water_ ) navy blue. His hair is an ashen colour, clearly greying, yet has the tendency to occasionally catch the light and ( _explode into earthy dust-motes and sunbeams_ ) give the illusion of a blonder shade, somewhat reminiscent from his youth. [...] Height: ( _irrelevant_ ) 1.69 metres. He sleeps naked between May and September. [...] Commonly chosen attire: ( _appalling_ ) predominantly denim with a betrayed fondness for heavy cable knit. In any tone. [...] His smile ( _positively blazed_ ) is led more by his eyes then any quirk of the mouth, but there is a solitary indentation on the left side of his face due to ( _a collaboration of time and overuse and wicked grinning while our lungs filled with december and our weightless feet struck heavy pavement under sodium light_ ) age. His only immediately identifiable ‘tell’ is a slight, unnecessary cough when nervous. [...]”

The rest of the entries are images or moments or things he said.

You savour them.

One of your favourites only had a duration of a few seconds but you play it and replay it until you can recall it perfectly.

It had been November. You had been prostrate on the sofa ( _idiot_ ) but you had happened to stretch and catch the image. His back was to you and ( _you wanted him to turn around_ ) he was sitting at the kitchen table, his head turned so that his absent gaze fell upon some indefinable image ( _light; he was looking at the winter light; or the birds, perhaps_ ) beyond the window. Two hands were nursing a cup of tea ( _no, that’s wrong, he wasn’t: he was standing next to the kettle; or, or- no, he wasn’t even there, he was watching television; no, stop it, the light had home to claim him already because you hadn’t shut the curtains; you had shut the curtains but the light came anyway; the light didn’t come, not yet; he wasn’t sitting down; well, he wasn’t standing up; perhaps he wasn’t looking out of the window; perhaps he was looking directly at you_ ) that sat, for the moment, untouched. He was either enjoying the steady flow of steam onto his neck or he was oblivious. Thinking ( _or sleeping; or trapped somewhere; or writing his own notebook_ ). In this moment, humbled ( _powerful_ ) and vulnerable ( _beautiful_ ) in the weak sunshine, you considered him ( _a tornado; a broadsheet newspaper; an adventure so dangerous that he didn’t even know the way_ ) a fascinating anticlimax. Aging and slowly dying ( _not yet, not yet; you have to stop because- because you didn’t think these things, surely, not then_ ), dragged into the mud of the general populace with quiet contemplation and a ramrod spine.

You had said his name, at that moment. No- you said nothing. Just watched him fade into the muted colours of the kitchen cabinets. Maybe you turned and shut your eyes and gave him up for a lost cause, what does it- what does it matter.

So he had turned and replied and disappeared and strode towards you and taken your chin in his palm and put on his coat and walked out of the house and pulled the curtains tightly shut and everything happened but of course, nothing happened really.

All you know is that when you finally opened your eyes again all the lights had been turned off and you were just in time to see the stool clattering harmlessly to the linoleum, long since cold and making no noise at all.

Your eyes fly open and you’re taking in too much air in too short a space of time and yes, there’s the ceiling and there’s the kitchen but he’s not in it so this isn’t right, this isn’t the correct place. Eyes wide, seeing nothing, submerge yourself again.

Now he’s looking at you and the lines around his eyes are getting heavier by the second. Your mouth is shouting and you’re trying to articulate something so desperately that you can hardly move with the fear of it but you can’t remember what it is. There’s his face, in the kitchen again, in front of your face again, so oblivious looking out of the window at the birds and the November surrounding you both. A sudden movement, a bullet, he’s kissing you, his expression doesn’t alter, so peaceful, it’s tearing through his flesh, so oblivious, looking out of the window at the birds.

It was only a case, you think desperately. An anticlimax, you’d think it’s saving you or saving himself or saving the world but it was one addict with one gun and four bullets inside the one gun and two arms and one fingertip and there, you see. That’s where it happened, that’s when the whole planet came crashing downwards. Not in your kitchen and not with the tea and the light washing through him like hessian or spider webs but you didn’t write that entry down so it had to write itself, you see. November sunshine streaming through the gaps where he bled from and he hasn’t noticed, poor thing. He hasn’t noticed and you won’t move you just turn and shut your eyes and give him up for a lost cause and he- well, you know what happens now. He’s so oblivious, immobile, warmed by the gentle steam and quietly fading as he looks out of the window at the birds.


	2. (revised version?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PopperAlexander - I hope you don't mind me shoving this down your throat so much! I tried to take your advice and construct a second-person narrative that was more explicitly internalised, but it just didn't fit as well as I'd want it to and sounded sort of.. forced, really. So, in a bid to increase the intimacy, I just went 'fuck it' and changed it to first-person. Was curious as to how you (and anyone else who happens to stumble across this as well, I suppose) feel about this? Again, I am forever grateful for your continued support :) x

“It is now widely recognised that human memory is not an exact reproduction of past experiences but is instead an imperfect process that is prone to various kinds of errors and distortions.” - _Daniel L. Schacter & Peggy L. St. Jacques, Department of Psychology, Harvard University_

In other words, the brain is a fickle mistress. We do not retain the memories of exact experiences, but rather the memories of conscious (or subconscious) thoughts during said experiences; alternately, the memories can become tainted and affected due to a later event.

This applies to everyone.

This applies to myself, although I do not accept it.

***

“What are you doing?” He had asked, taking residence of the armchair to my left.

“Notebook.” I had let the word loose so hurriedly that it bent sharply in the middle as it sped up my larynx and out of my mouth. Against the inside of my eyelids I saw the light stutter and distort itself.

It was a notebook, but the writing on the pages was three dimensional and I had added colour and movement and sound, all annotated so closely and so intricately that there were places where the ink pooled neatly off the corners and blended into the black.

“Ah.”

“So I don’t forget you.”

“Me?”

“You. So I forget nothing about you.”

“What, so- So you’ve written down my height and my shoe size and-”

“-and the different ways you prefer your toast, and the exact intonation of your voice when you’re confused but you’re trying to mask it, and likelihood of you choosing particular channels when you turn on the television in percentages in descending order, and-- You get the gist, I’m sure.”

***

I’m reading it now. And although I wrote it down - although I recorded this - everything is slightly blurred in places where it wasn’t in The Before and there are- Yes, there are definite markings and patterns and added colour where I knew it never used to be. When bereft of creative stimulus, I suppose, the mind entertains itself.

This is not strictly true.

So I’m reading it now and it’s pulling on something indefinable, but that’s okay. That’s really quite okay. To feel is better not to feel in most situations, which is a thing I never learned for myself but was taught and accepted and I grew. With an air of sudden nostalgia, I wish I were still growing.

The book was wrapped in leather and more easily compared to a kineograph than a novel, but the first few pages were bound tightly together by solid cursive.

“These,” I had written, “Are the facts:

“His eyes are ( _water_ ) navy blue. His hair is an ashen colour, clearly greying, yet has the tendency to occasionally catch the light and ( _explode into earthy dust-motes and sunbeams_ ) give the illusion of a blonder shade, somewhat reminiscent from his youth. [...] Height: ( _irrelevant_ ) 1.69 metres. He sleeps naked between May and September. [...] Commonly chosen attire: ( _appalling_ ) predominantly denim with a betrayed fondness for heavy cable knit. In any tone. [...] His smile ( _positively blazed_ ) is led more by his eyes then any quirk of the mouth, but there is a solitary indentation on the left side of his face due to ( _a collaboration of time and overuse and wicked grinning while our lungs filled with december and our weightless feet struck heavy pavement under sodium light_ ) age. His only immediately identifiable ‘tell’ is a slight, unnecessary cough when nervous.”

The rest of the entries are images or moments or things he said.

I savour them.

One of my favourites only had a duration of a few seconds but I play it and replay it until I can recall it perfectly.

It had been November. I had been prostrate on the sofa ( _idiot_ ) but I had happened to stretch and catch the image. His back was to me and ( _you wanted him to turn around_ ) he was sitting at the kitchen table, his head turned so that his absent gaze fell upon some indefinable image ( _light; he was looking at the winter light; or the birds, perhaps_ ) beyond the window. Two hands were nursing a cup of tea ( _no, that’s wrong, he wasn’t: he was standing next to the kettle; or, or- no, he wasn’t even there, he was watching television; no, stop it, the light had home to claim him already because you hadn’t shut the curtains; you had shut the curtains but the light came anyway; the light didn’t come, not yet; he wasn’t sitting down; well, he wasn’t standing up; perhaps he wasn’t looking out of the window; perhaps he was looking directly at you_ ) that sat, for the moment, untouched. He was either enjoying the steady flow of steam onto his neck or he was oblivious. Thinking ( _or sleeping; or trapped somewhere; or writing his own notebook_ ). In this moment, humbled ( _powerful_ ) and vulnerable ( _beautiful_ ) in the weak sunshine, I considered him ( _a tornado; a broadsheet newspaper; an adventure so dangerous that he didn’t even know the way_ ) a fascinating anticlimax. Aging and slowly dying ( _not yet, not yet; you have to stop because- because you didn’t think these things, surely, not then_ ), dragged into the mud of the general populace with quiet contemplation and a ramrod spine.

I had said his name, at that moment. No- I said nothing. Just watched him fade into the muted colours of the kitchen cabinets. Maybe I turned and shut my eyes and gave him up for a lost cause, what does it- what does it matter.

So he had turned and replied and disappeared and strode towards me and taken my chin in his palm and put on his coat and walked out of the house and pulled the curtains tightly shut and everything happened but of course, nothing happened really.

All I know is that when I finally opened my eyes again all the lights had been turned off and I was just in time to see the stool clattering harmlessly to the linoleum, long since cold and making no noise at all.

My eyes fly open and I’m taking in too much air in too short a space of time and yes, there’s the ceiling and there’s the kitchen but he’s not in it so this isn’t right, this isn’t the correct place. Eyes wide, seeing nothing, submerge myself again.

Now he’s looking at me and the lines around his eyes are getting heavier by the second. My mouth is shouting and I’m trying to articulate something so urgently that I can hardly move with the fear of it but I can’t remember what it is. There’s his face, in the kitchen again, in front of my face again, so oblivious looking out of the window at the birds and the November surrounding us both. A sudden movement, a bullet, he’s kissing me, his expression doesn’t alter, so peaceful, it’s tearing through his flesh, so oblivious, looking out of the window at the birds.

It was only a case, I think desperately. An anticlimax, you’d think it would be saving me or saving himself or saving the world but it was one addict with one gun and four bullets inside the one gun and two arms and one fingertip and there, you see. That’s where it happened, that’s when the whole planet came crashing downwards. Not in our kitchen and not with the tea and the light washing through him like hessian or spider webs but I didn’t write that entry down so it had to write itself, do you understand? November sunshine streaming through the gaps where he bled from and he hasn’t noticed, poor thing. He hasn’t noticed and I won’t move I just turn and shut my eyes and give him up for a lost cause and he- well, you know what happens now. He’s so oblivious, immobile, warmed by the gentle steam and - quietly fading. Quietly fading as he looks out of the window at the birds.


End file.
